ch really have been prized amongst the old inhabitants of these
islands or of other parts of the world."[56]

This is an extremely important conclusion on the relationship of
history and tradition, and it will be well to illustrate it by turning
to some obvious details of primitive life, which are to be seen with
more or less clearness enshrined in the folk-tales which have been
preserved in our own country.

In Kennedy's _Fireside Stories of Ireland_, it is related in one of
the tales that there was no window to the mud-wall cabin, and the door
was turned to the north;[57] and then, again, we have this picture
given to us in another story: on a common that had in the middle of it
a rock or great pile of stones overgrown with furze bushes, there was
a dwelling-house, and a cow-house, and a goat's-house, and a pigsty
all scooped out of the rock; and the cows were going into the byre,
and the goats into their house, but the pigs were grunting and bawling
before the door.[58] This takes us to the surroundings of the
cave-dwelling people.

Then in other places we come across relics of ancient agricultural
life preserved in these stories. In the Irish story of "Hairy Rouchy"
the heroine is fastened by her wicked sisters in a pound,[59] an
incident not mentioned in the parallel Highland tale related by
Campbell.[60] Many Irish stories contain details of primitive life
that the Scottish variants do not contain. The field that was partly
cultivated with corn and partly pasture for the cow,[61] the grassy
ridge upon which the princess sat, and the furrows wherein her two
brothers were lying,[62] are instances.

A great question arises here. If the Scotch story does not mention
the primitive incident mentioned in the Irish story, does it mean that
the Irish story has retained for a longer time the details of its
primitive original? Or does it mean that it has absorbed more of
surrounding Irish life into it than the Scotch story has of
surrounding Scottish life?

These details must have a place in the elucidation of Irish
folk-tales, because they have a very distinct place indeed in
primitive institutions; and it hence becomes a question to folklorists
as to how they have entered into, or escaped from, the narrative of
traditional story. It appears to me that the appearance or
non-appearance of these phases of early life are typical of what has
been going on with the plot and structure of folk-tales as long as
they have rem